As the Land Rover Discovery emigrates to Slovakia, a little piece of England goes with it

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Like a seven-seat, diesel-powered scone, Land Rover's Discovery has been an integral part of British life. But its production line is moving to Slovakia – should that matter?

Little remains of the “British” car industry. Apart from a handful of relatively small producers – I can think of about four – every “British manufacturer” is in fact foreign-owned. Bentley is owned by the Germans, MG is owned by the Chinese, and Jaguar Land Rover, probably our greatest automotive success story, is owned by Indian conglomerate Tata. Even Rolls-Royce is a subsidiary of BMW.

It’s strange, therefore, that we think of certain cars as being particularly “British”, especially as we have to draw such arbitrary distinctions to do so. The British-designed, British-made Range Rover Velar is considered a “British” car, while the British-designed, British-made Honda Civic Type R is very...